


basia mille

by gotham_ruaidh



Series: Gotham Writes for Imagine Claire & Jamie [103]
Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 01:19:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16944294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotham_ruaidh/pseuds/gotham_ruaidh
Summary: The aftermath of the bath/ring scene in 04x06...





	basia mille

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted at [Imagine Claire & Jamie](https://imagineclaireandjamie.tumblr.com/post/180989115002/could-anyone-write-what-was-after-the-bath-ring) on tumblr

 

“One hundred seventy four.”

This time he bit the sensitive curve of her neck. She playfully swatted him away.

“Over two hundred now, by my count.”

He lifted up on his arms, just enough to narrow his eyes. “Fine. I suppose that means I’ll have to start all over again.”

She pulled him to her. Tasted his lips again, like it was the first time.

“I suppose so,” she whispered against his mouth. “What a pity.”

–

“No, it would be at the very bottom.”

Claire pulled the regrettably damp quilt tighter around her shoulders, watching gooseflesh ripple across Jamie’s naked legs and back as he dug in the chest for their one spare blanket.

“Ha!” he exclaimed triumphantly, throwing the green and white MacKenzie tartan over his shoulder. “Auntie Jocasta sent this in her last parcel?”

Claire nodded, scooting over to make room for him on the bed. “I'm surprised she still had it. She hasn’t been a MacKenzie for a long time.”

Jamie snorted. “Ye ken as well as I do, Sassenach - she may be a Cameron thrice over, but she will be a MacKenzie ‘til the day she dies.”

On the way back he took a quick detour to the door - pulled off their pegs the fur wraps that had quickly become such key components of their outerwear this winter - and took his place at Claire’s side. Gently he pushed the quilt down to her waist, helped her into the rabbit fur vest he had made for her, and wrapped his own mantle of raccoon and badger fur around his shivering shoulders. She draped the tartan over their backs, cocooning them with warmth.

“I remember the only other time it’s just been furs and a tartan for us,” he whispered, voice low, eyes dark.

“I do, too.”

She kissed him - two hundred and fifty six, by her count. Seeking and finding his hand beneath the tartan. His thumb ran over her new ring.

“I don’t need it. But I love it.”

She watched his jaw flex.

“Do ye -” He swallowed. “I feel that here, tonight – in our first home – everything is new again.”

She twined their fingers together. So tight.

“In Edinburgh, you told me it had always been forever for you.”

“Aye.”

“You know I - I didn’t feel exactly the same way then. On our first night.I still meant to leave.”

He raised their joined hands from under the tartan. Kissed her ring. “I ken that. But it doesna matter now. You came back. Then - and now.”

She pressed her lips together. “What I mean to say is - with this ring, I*want* to wear it. I didn’t wait for you to put it on me – I wanted to put it on myself. Because I am choosing you - choosing this life. With everything I know now - even with all the pain and death and heartbreak - ”

Tears shone in his eyes, so full of love. “You still make the same choice.”

She nodded. Heart too full for words.

Beneath the tartan, then, he pulled her to his lap. Kisses showering her face like sacred rain.

–

Ice against her shoulder roused her from dreams of sunlight and crushed ferns and Jamie’s musk.

She must have murmured something, for somewhere in the dark he called to her.

“*Seas, a nighean donn*. I am here. Just putting more logs on the fire.”

And then he was back - pulling her to his chest, so warm. Lips against her hairline, her curls tickling his nose.

There in the dark, half asleep, so safe in his arms, words flowed unbidden from her mind.

“Why did you offer yourself to John Grey?”

His hand, skimming across her back beneath the tartan, stilled. His other hand dug into her side.

To question how she knew would be to insult her intelligence - and the trust he knew she had in him. For she did not ask him why he did not tell her - only, with her scientific mind, to know the truth.

“Did you feel it was the only thing you could offer him?”

Her thumb traced the contours of his collarbone - her (his) ring warm and solid.

“When I was at Ardsmuir, one night we played chess. We began talking about those we had lost at Culloden - I spoke of you, and he spoke of…he called it a 'particular friend’ he had lost.”

Jamie swallowed. Claire kissed under his chin.

“That was the first night he made it very clear how he felt about me.”

“The first?”

“It happened again, years later. I dinna care to think of it now. Because both times I refused him. But then when I left Helwater…”

His pulse raced beneath her thumb. She pressed the ghost of the J he had carved into her against his own skin.

“I had to know he would care for Willie properly. That he would love him as his own, and raise him as I would, had I been able to.”

“So it was as payment.” Her hand soothed his flush.

“It was all I had.”

“And had he said yes?”

The dampness on her cheeks was not her own. She kissed his tears, one by one.

“I have thought of it a thousand times. I would have killed him. Or perhaps I would have…let him have his way. Sometimes I want both.”

“But it didn’t happen.” She kissed him long and slow. Only after along moment did he reciprocate.

“I didna have much of a heart left by that point,” he whispered.“I had lost you. Our bairns. And I was about to lose Willie, too. So I thought, it wouldnae have mattered much. So when John refused me - I felt nothing.” He sighed. “And then the rest of my heart died when I had to leave my flesh and blood behind.”

“I know.” She shifted up so that they were nose to nose on the pillow. “I know that feeling. I understand.”

“You do, don’t you?”

Her hand dug into the thick hair at the base of his skull. “It was a bit different, I suppose. She was grown. I didn’t want to leave her - but she told me to go. That just as you gave me to her, she was now giving me to you.”

He crushed her to him. She wrapped her legs around his narrow waist.

“Had you not come back, Claire -”

“Sshh.”

“Why am I cursed to not raise my own children? To - to have them raised by Englishmen, in foreign lands?”

His body tensed around hers, coiled so tight with grief and rage.

“Why should I have lived half of my life without the other half of my soul?”

“Had we not sacrificed then, we wouldn’t be here now.” She rolled them on the mattress so that they were side to side, her breasts crushed to his chest. “We would both be dead. And where’s the point in that?”

He heaved a tremendous sigh.

“I’m not arrogant enough to compare myself to Job - but I understand why God rewarded him for his years of sorrow. For the things gained through hardship are that much sweeter, no?”

“Yes.” She brushed stray strands of hair from his cheeks. “For those things, we make the same choice – even when we know of the hardships.”

He anchored his hands on her hips. She tucked one leg between his. He drew closer for a kiss.

“Three hundred and sixteen,” he breathed against her lips. “I’ve been counting.”

She kissed him. “Let’s try for five hundred before dawn.”

He kissed her. “By your count or mine?”

She kissed him. “Each.”


End file.
